The
word "Samkhya" literally means "counting" or "enumeration". A
secondary meaning from that is categorization. The classifications
are in 3 parts such as the "gunas", or "energy levels" of things or
people. Other categories from there are the classical 50
categories. There are links to Yoga and to Meditation from Samkhya,
but I will not go into those in depth in this page.

Gunas

Gunas are vibrational levels under which everything
is classified.

They are ennumerated as three: Light, Middling, and Heavy, or
Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.

Popularly, Sattva is viewed as "Good", and Tamas as "Bad". That is
not the case though. These each have their function and their ways
of being used.

Sattvic things are "light" or "airy". A person with a Sattvic
physiology would be thin and light-boned. Sattvic foods are fresh,
raw foods which generally have a sweet taste. Fresh fruits,
vegetables, milk, and ginger are examples of Sattvic foods. A
person with a Sattvic disposition is content, smiling, and
generally easy-going and centered. Meditation is a very Sattvic
activity.

Rajavic things are in the middle, and are energetic. A person with
a Rajavic physiology is neither fat nor thin, but is likely to have
an athletic build and a predisposition for sports. The nature is
very energetic, and there would be a tendency to be drawn to things
which are quite exciting, although possibly risky. These people are
the adrenaline junkies of the world. There is a lot of activity,
but the movement is willy-nilly. Rajavic foods tend to be things
which are spicy, or contain things to give more energy, such as
refined sugar and caffeine.

Tamasic things are heavy. The movement is slow, or not at all. They
may be viewed as thoughtful or lazy. However, once a decision is
reached to move some particular direction, through the addition of
Sattva, there is no stopping it! It would be as futile for an
outside force to try to stop a mighty river. The river too moves
slowly in general, but may speed up or slow down at times. Due to
the quantity and weight, the inertia is enormous! Tamasic foods
tend to be heavy foods - heavy starches such as potatoes, fats,
meats, spoiled or fermenting foods.

To further complicate this, by combining any two of these gunas,
you produce the third. Tamas given energy becomes Sattva. Rajas
with Satva added becomes Tamas. This is one explanation why for a
very energetic person to learn meditation, there are seldom any
results - Tamas alone is stagnation.

All of these gunas, or vibrational levels are useful. In my
opinion, it is better and easier to try to make the best use of the
energy you have than it is to make an attempt to fundamentally
change it. It is similar to a vocal ensemble. There are bass,
tenor, alto, and soprano parts. For the music group to sound good,
all of those parts have to be there, and have to sing their own
parts. It is futile to try to change an excellent bass into a
soprano! It would be foolish to remove everyone from the music
group except the sopranos! Like the music group, all of life needs
all of the parts to operate in harmony.

In another way, gunas can be ennumerated as 24 in number. Those are:

satva - light

rajas - energetic and middle-weight

tamas - heavy, slow moving or stopped. Inert.

rupa - form

rasa- taste

gandha- smell

sparasa- touch

sabda- sound

sankhya- number

parimana- magnitude

prthaktva- uniqueness

samyoga- conjunction or nearness

buddhi- cognition

saukha- pleasure

dukha- pain

iccha- desire

dvesa- aversion

prayatna- effort

gurutva- heaviness

dravatva- fluidity

sneha- viscidity

samskara- tendency

dharma- merit or virtue

adharma- demerit or nonvirtue.

Clearly, these gunas can be combined in numerous ways! In fact, some combination of these with a quantity attached could be used to pretty thoroughly describe anything.

Koshas

Kosha is a Sanskrit word meaning "sheath". Samkhya
has these enumerated as five. These are Annomaya,
Pranamaya, Manomaya, Jnanamaya, and
Anandamaya. Sanskrit words are compounds, so they must be
understood in pieces. Maya means "measure". The beginnings
of these words are Food, Life (of the body), Mind (in its emotional
aspects), Mind (in its knowledge aspects, especially spiritual
knowledge), and Bliss. Some of these are easier or harder than
others to see. I am starting to believe references to food, prana,
mind, knowledge and joy are the things these sheaths are dependent
on that thereby measured or limited by. This means that the
physical body is dependent on food, "life" is dependent upon and
limited by energy, "mind" is limited by emotions, "knowledge" is
limited by thoughts, and "joy" is only limited by itself, or is
unlimited.

My interpretation of the first one being "food" is that it's a
realization that you are more than just an element of the food
chain, and are more than merely a composition of what you consume.
There is a meaning of "nourishment" or "sustenance" there too.
Annomaya Kosha can give one the nourishment it takes to get
through to the next sheath. Very little is written about this
sheath. It is believed this is merely a mathematical placeholder
where a sheath should be at the very beginning of a spiritual
journey. The element is fire.

Pranamaya kosha is of experiencing that you are not your
body. Your body is merely a vehicle for you to use to accomplish
your goals for a time. When people cross this sheath through the
meditational methods available within Samkhya, they invariably get
a vision of seeing their body as made of clay, mud, sand, or stone.
Clearly, the element is earth.

Manomaya kosha is of experiencing an existence beyond your
emotions. Your emotions are your own, and they serve you. They give
you an idea of what is the right or wrong thing for you to be doing
or accepting. Yet, you drive them. They do not drive you. When
people cross this kosha through the meditational methods available
within Samkhya, they have visions involving water. Clearly, the
element here is water.

Jnanamaya kosha is of experiencing an existence beyond your
intellect. These also serve you, and give you a basis to make
decisions. Yet, these are not YOU either. They are a basis of
knowledge of spiritual and mundane matters. You are the one who
decides what to do with these thoughts, or what sorts of thoughts
or knowledge to have or to learn. When people cross this kosha, the
visions involve air and often thoughts as breezes. The element of
this kosha is air.

Anandamaya kosha is the sheath of joy. You are not any of
the previous 4 things, but you are a spiritual being who is for now
living in a mundane way for some purpose. No two individuals have
the same purpose to any of this. The element is ether.

As these Koshas are pierced, one by one, one goes through
the boundary of the one element, perhaps from or to a different
element. The experiences everyone has of piercing a Kosha
may be similar to light refracting different elements, such as
watching an object on the other side of a fire as the light passes
through air to fire and back or viewing waves upon water as water
and air meet.

Attainment of any of these is not dependent upon anything external.
It does not matter what kind of a person you are. This is not
bestowed "by divine grace" for "goodness" under any definition.
Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler could start on the same day and
attain Kaivalya, or Divine Emancipation on the same day. Likewise,
stopping the practice or engaging in any "sin" does not make
Kaivalya go away. It is permanent. It cannot be "taken" away or
"lost" for any reason.

The one consideration though is that Karma, or the law of
cause and effect or action and reaction still applies. I would not
want to be eternal with the Karma of Adolf Hitler. As such, it pays
to be benevolent, if not outright good.

Karma

I do not believe in reincarnation as a discrete,
individual, separate being as a general case. This may happen, but
only by exception. Instead, I believe in something more akin to
recycling, whereby the being that is now "you" is made up of
all past incarnated beings who passed none of the koshas.
Therefore, you came into being with an approximately clean slate.
Approximately, because karma is to some degree collective. The
world you live in was made that way because of the actions of
people who preceded you, just as your body was determined mostly by
your genetics, and somewhat by your environment. If you also live
and die without passing any koshas, you too will pass from
being a discrete, individual entity to being recycled into all who
come after you. Your karma goes with that.

If, on the other hand, you do cross koshas, you will
be immortal as an individual. As one who has experienced
Pranamaya kosha, you also have full realization that you are
not your body. Your body will certainly age and die, while your
spirit lives on eternally, as a discreet, individual, separate
entity. You will have time to experience all of the repercussions,
both good and bad, for everything that you do. This is not a
judgment of you or your actions. It's merely cause and effect or
action and reaction.

For one who has crossed the koshas far enough to have gained
an individual afterlife, the balance will happen to you,
personally. If you had lived a saintly life, and continue to live
that way in the afterlife, a great many pleasures, joys, and
contentments will await you. If you lived the life of an evil
tyrant, you will receive a great many pains, torments, and
unpleasant things in the afterlife as well as possibly later in
this life.

The basis for any action, therefore, is self-interest. Anyone who
is doing evil deeds is looking for some sort of gain or pleasure
immediately. Anything done to either minimize negative impact or to
outright improve some situation for someone or something is also
for the self-interest of repayment. Most of us do not live
exemplary lives. We do not have to, since there are no previous
"karmic debts" to repay. Most people, when you get down to it, are
acting in whatever way as a form of benevolent selfishness. If you
are known to behave badly, others will stop giving you a chance to
do bad things to them. If you are known to do various good things,
people will let you near them to let you do more good things. In a
more objective sense, this is similar to one's credit rating.
Obviously, it is in your short-term interest to take as much money
as you can and not pay it back. If you do this, longer term, you
will get annoying phone calls and legal actions which will force
you to repay the money owed. Also, anyone else is unlikely to lend
you money or give you a place to live, or if they do, you will have
to pay higher interest, higher rent, higher collateral and higher
security deposits. If though, you borrow money and do pay it back
BEFORE it is due, others will be happy to lend you more money and
have you pay it back.

If you do believe in discrete, intact reincarnation, you did come
into this life with some amounts of karma, both good and bad
from a previous lifetime. Still, you've got a choice on whether to
improve things or make them worse. Again, benevolent self-interest
is the most probably way anyone will behave.

My Own Experiences

After I had been performing Raja Meditation as outlined in the
Samkhya scriptures, especially the Yoga Sutras, for exactly
108 days, I had an interesting experience one day. I looked at my
arms, and I saw this drying, crusty clay covering them. I looked
around the house and I saw clay everywhere! I made food that
appeared to be clay as I made it, and it tasted like clay. I was
even reluctant to pet my cat for fear of getting clay all over his
beautiful fur. I laughed and saw how ridiculous my fears were, and
pet him anyway. This was a very moving experience for me, and one I
have never forgotten.

108 days later, I had to face all of my emotions. This included
both the positive and negative emotions I had ever felt about
anyone or anything! This was difficult to get through. I needed
someone to talk to in order to continue to face all of these
things, but I did. I saw them as dripping through an aquatic
system. This vision lasted most of an hour. After that though, I
was free of turmoil of emotion, or should I say a state that
transcended emotion. Sure, I could look back or around and
appreciate the positive emotions, or I could feel the negative
emotions, but they've never effected me the same way unless I
wanted them to. Thus, my emotions came under my control rather
than me being under their control. Sure, I can choose at any time
to become engrossed in any emotion - positive or negative - but it
is still my own choice.

108 days after that, there was something of a very subtle crossing.
There were thoughts on breezes. I felt a cool wind passing over me,
and with that wind there seemed to be all knowledge of
everything.

108 days after that was a metamorphosis! As I lie down to do a
meditation, I felt that "I" would never get back up from that
meditation. I continued it anyway. The meditation itself was very
very deep. After a mere 20 minutes, I was abruptly jarred out of
this meditation by a thunder clap, rain on the awning. I jumped up
rather than gently came out of my meditation. Everything was
different! I was FREE! I have never again looked at the world in
the same way that I did before this happened.

For about a month, I was always smiling and happy. After this
"honeymoon period" was over, it was back to reality. Sure, there
are things I have to do to maintain my life. There are things I
must do for myself and for others. But, I am none of those things.
I can always "look" around and see the Divine Presence that
surrounds me.

It has been many years since that happened. There are some other
things that have resulted from this full knowledge. I will have no
end. My body will certainly give out and die at some point, but I
will live on. As such, I do not look at things the same way. I used
to look at a majestic mountain and think that it would always be
there. I look at them now with internal knowledge that I will
outlive the mountain. Same with a seashore, or with a star. As I
will have no end, it follows that I had no beginning. The date I
see printed on my driver's license seems arbitrary to me.

Although I no longer have the goal of Kaivalya, I still maintain
this practice on a daily basis for some of its other "secondary"
benefits. Those benefits involve focus, relaxation, better sleep,
better control of all aspects of myself, and continued focus on the
Self.

Meditation

The meditation discussed is the meditation described
in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and other Sanskrit sources.
To effectively do this meditation seems to require personal
instruction. Contact me or
contact my Samkhya teacher through the Samkhya Yoga site.

If you simply wish to try meditation and do not wish any of these
spiritual goals, you can do that. There are any number of
meditations which will in various ways modify the direction of your
consciousness. However, Raja Yoga or Samkhya Meditation is the only
method of which I am aware that will modify the amount of
consciousness.

However, if you are new to all of this, and perhaps to an
independent spiritual journey altogether, you could try this
Simple Meditation. I will assure you
that this method, or others you may find in meditation books,
articles, tapes, and other such sources will not get you to cross
any koshas or get you to Kaivalya. It will get you other typical
meditation goals such as deeper relaxation, better sleep, less
tension, and better focus.

3 Paths

There are 3 basic paths through which one can reach
the divine. These are: Bhakti (Devotion), Jnana
(Knowledge), and Karma (works). Often these have the word
-Yoga appended to them, but that is not really necessary.

The path of devotion is simple. Devote yourself totally to some
deity or deities. Worship Him/Her/It/Them, love Him/Her/It/Them,
and follow the teachings of the associated religion or
philosophy.

The path of Jnana is of knowledge. This is spiritual
knowledge, not knowledge you can learn in a book or from any
person. This sort of knowledge is only available from the divine
directly. No human being can directly impart such knowledge. The
best they can do is tell you how to open yourself to obtaining it
for yourself.

The third way is through Karma, or action. I use the eastern
meaning of the word Karma, which simply means
action/reaction. Quite simply, if you put your hand on a hot stove,
you will get a burn. It's nothing doing anything to you. There's no
forgiveness involved. I can forgive you for putting your hand on
the stove, but you'll still have to recover from the burn.
Likewise, everything you do has a ripple effect to you and others
around you. If you do good things, you will receive good things. Do
bad ones, and you will receive bad things. Some things are not
really obvious though. For instance, if you try to heal someone who
really does NOT want healing, you have done a bad thing. Discerning
what is good and bad, or the best, is not always easy to do.

These work better together than any one of them does individually.
This is one definition of Raja Yoga, but this definition
must not be confused with the other definition used to refer to the
meditation.

4 Destinations

There are 4 possible destinations to a spiritual
path. What are you trying to get? Before you or anyone can tell you
how to reach your intended destination, you must first decide what
that destination is. Otherwise, you will never get there. It is
pointless to argue about someone taking a "wrong" path or "wrong"
approach when they are merely trying to achieve a different goal!
The first is to just do your duty to family, community, and
society. You just want to fit in, and do your part for "goodness"
under some definition. That's as good of a reason to be following a
spiritual path as any. However, I seriously doubt that is going to
be the main one for most people who are reading this page.

Another possible destination is wealth - and comfort. If you do all
of the right things for God, God will reward you with the good
things of life. This is typically what people mean when they think
that having good things is because of "living right" or getting bad
things to happen is a result of "living wrong".

Another possible destination is to obtain your pleasures. These are
different than wants - they are your wildest dreams! There is often
an element of sexuality involved in these goals or desires.

Another destination is to God under some definition in some way.
There are 5 different types of this sort of "Salvation" or
"Liberation". You can be in the same realm as your God, you can be
near your God, you can possess the same attributes or abilities as
your God, or you can become one with your God. These are all
worthwhile, depending upon how you envision your God and your mode
of worshipping. None of these are necessarily permanent. If you
decide you want out or away, you're back "out" and "away" from
God.

The real "Liberation" or "Salvation" is none other than Kaivalya
also known as MahaNirvana. This is permanent. It is not dependent
upon your continuing the meditation, devotion, good works, or much
of anything else. This is not a future condition of the afterlife.
You can have liberation and still be alive.

Thus, with 3 possible paths, which may be mixed in various ways,
and 5 possible destinations, it should not be surprising that
everyone has a different path. None of these paths, if oriented
toward "goodness", is any more right or wrong than any of the
others.

Copyright 2004 by Elizabeth Harper
All Rights Reserved
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